WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en-GB

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I'm filming in the California desert with
YouTube's Field Day crew – and a drone.

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Now, if we see any other aircraft flying near
here, we are going to be grounding immediately,

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because, well, that's the safe thing to do.
There's a small municipal airport a few miles

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away, but there's no traffic, and visibility's
perfect today. But here is a rather scary

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statistic: in the US, there were more than
a hundred close encounters between drones

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and manned aircraft every month this year.
That means that the plane or helicopter was

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close enough that its pilot could spot the
drone visually – because, well, they don't

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show on radar.

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Now, given there are 30,000 passenger flights
every day in the US, that's not much cause

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for alarm. That's only, what, about 1 in 10,000
pilots who even see a drone, let alone get

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close to one. But: there are tales of drones
swooping past passenger aircraft as they're

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coming in to land, just to get a good picture,
and firefighting helicopters being grounded

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until some jerk with a drone stops putting
his YouTube hit count above actually fighting the fire.

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Now, oop! -- in the UK, you need permission
to operate a filming drone commercially, even

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if that's just with YouTube ads. And you need
special approval to operate within 50 metres

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of anyone or any building that you aren't
in complete control of. And yes, the vast

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majority of individual drone operators are
completely ignoring that, knowing that the

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authorities don't have the time or the energy
to chase everyone up.

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In the US, though, the laws vary by state
and change regularly, so I'm not even going

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to try to sum them up other than to say that
the Drone Dudes here are definitely following them.

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I'd say the world's about a year or two away
from the first actual collision. If it's with

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a big aircraft, then the drone'll take out
one engine and everyone'll probably be fine.

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But if it's a small, civil aircraft, or something
like a paraglider: well.

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Either way, that's when the law will actually
start to catch up, and when there'll be more

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people arrested for what Britain calls “airprox
violations” than the drunken fool who crashed

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his drone on the White House lawn this year.

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All right. Take her up!

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And if you want to know why I'm here, with
all these weird lines in the desert around

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me: then check out my Field Day, out in California
City.

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Man that is going to look awesome.

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A-OK? (Cutting.)

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